Theocracy

[StealthySkeptic]

This is from my conversation on BahaiForums, and I have to say I was massively weirded out by it. Basically, a lot of Baha'is there think that a Cataclysm will cause the end of the current international society, after which the Baha'i Administrative World Order will become the new world government that everybody will turn to and everybody will never have any problems or criticisms and hold hangs and sing happy songs to God for all eternity.

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Dear friend SmilingSkeptic

All your statement would be very true, if based soley on the political theories and practices that have existed to date. This Administrative Order is based on the adherance of its practitioners to proper religious practices. This also means that you may have "studied the issue in-depth", but again, the only avenue to you, as you have rejected God and any acceptance of religious truth, is those same systems that have existed in the past and that exist now, all of which have failed and collapsed, or are failing and collapsing.

There is a saying of old that God looks after His own. And what could be more His Own, than the Administrative Order He has fashioned and given to us

You appear to have missed a point stated above in my post. kernk made it clear at the end of his post in another thread. It is the same as that stated by Shoghi Effendi, and also by the Universal House of Justice. I repeat it here for refreshment:

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The Baha'i "world government" will not be imposed, it will be (and is) already in existence, and people will turn to it.

Your arguments imply (whether intentionally or not) that this system will be imposed, while the reality is that it will be accepted.

No electioneering? Good choice. Again, your argument presuppose the continued apathy of people toward the affairs in their community, local and national. Again to refresh memory, from my post above:

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To be able to make a wise choice at the election time, it is necessary for him to be in close and continued contact with all local activities, be they teaching, administrative or otherwise, and to fully and whole-heartedly participate in the affairs of the local as well as national committees and assemblies in his country.

if the individual fails in this, then the indiviual is failing in their responsibility. And that is a failure not only to society, but to himself. The future that the Baha'is see is not one of individualism, but of the collective whole, and every individual not only fully contributing to the collective good but that also finds their own best interests in that service to the community.

I will note that many of the positions you take are based on what you know as an American. Not all countries are governed in the same way, and not even all the so-called democracies run in the same manner. But that they are all failing in their purpose, whether your American system, or any other system, is evidenced by the condition the world finds itself in. The other position on which your arguments are based is that the status-quo will continue, when the evidence on world conditions is that the status-quo will lead only to the continued breakdown of society - the disintegration of the family, the corruption of the political systems, the loss of morals, the elevation of the right of the individual over the rights of society (regardless the detrimental affect this is having).

Just because we now have an international "society" (fragmented as we see it at this time) does not mean that this society is not as likely to suffer the same results of all those that went before, and eventually fade into obscurity. And just because the materialists today hold sway of so many of the public opnions does not mean that they will continue with that hold. It is necessary that this decline in standards and morals occur, that people can discover that which they do not want, and begin to take responsibility for achieving what they do want, as a society. While the world of the future will not be brought in because of politics, but because of people themselves. And it is this process that will see them recognising the claims and the position of Baha'u'llah and the Baha'i Faith, and becoming active participants in its goals and purposes.

The world stands on the crux of a major and massive change. And this change necessitates that the old and outworn manners and means of dpoing "things" likewise hasto undergo a huge and massive change. Whatever the condition of the society in a few hundred years may be, it most definately wll not be organised in any of the means and manners which we now consider normal. In fact, I would be quite unsurprised if they were to see us as primitives

Your red flag about responsibility is again based on experience with current systems, which have already been demonstrated to be corrupt. Current sytems may use the term 'religion', but the practice is very much not in conformity with a sane and proper practice of religion. Without religion, your red flag would prove true very rapidly. But by ignoring religion, the immediately loses validity. For it ignores that, if one is responsible to God, they take on a far greater responsibility that being simply responsible to the community that elected them.

Baha'u'llah states:

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Religion is verily the chief instrument for the establishment of order in the world and of tranquillity amongst its peoples. The weakening of the pillars of religion hath strengthened the foolish and emboldened them and made them more arrogant. Verily I say: The greater the decline of religion, the more grievous the waywardness of the ungodly. This cannot but lead in the end to chaos and confusion. Hear Me, O men of insight, and be warned, ye who are endued with discernment!
(Tablets of Baha'u'llah, p. 63)

Your red flag comes because "of the weakening of the pillars of religion". When the pillars of religion are strengthened, the red flag will fade away and finally vanish entirely.

I forgot to mention in my previous post. While the national body is elected by delegates elected at the local level, the Universal House of Justice is elected by these National bodies - you will find that in the Will and Testament of 'Abdu'l-Baha. Just thought I would give you some more grist for your mill (very cheeky grin by Romane)

You say that any kind of democracy needs adversaries. This is based on the assumption that the Baha'i Administrative Order is democratic. No. It is not. It may have some of the good elements of democracy included, but it is not democratic, at least in any materialistic sense. And unfortunately for your assumption, in the Baha'i order any system of divisiveness, which a system of opponentry is, is eschewed in this Faith. Such a divisive system is the antitheseis of the goals and purpose of this Faith, and would serve only to continue the processes of bitterness, anger and prejudice so apparent in the current world systems of democracy.

The difficulty with your arguments is not that they aren't valid - from the perspective that you are looking, they are. The difficulty is that they presuppose that anything inside the realms of religion is invalid. This, I am afraid, will leave you on the back foot in any discussion with the Baha'is. Though the Baha'is can easily and readily understand the perspective your statements are made from, you have no benefit in understanding the matter from the Baha'i perspective. You may know what the words say, but as in any circumstance, knowledge of the words does not mean understanding - any understanding must, by that very rejection of God and religion, be limited to the narrower confines of materialistic thought and beliefs, and cautioned by the very clear examples which such an approach of caution has proven to be needed.

As I said in another post, your role here is invaluable. Only, since then, I have been able to connect one more dot. For your questions make us look back to what our Texts and other authoratative writings say, which process can only act to reassure us and confirm us in the Path we have chosen to follow, and to inspirer our efforts to greater height. And for this, every Baha'i must genuinely offer you most humbly thanks from their hearts.

Anyway, am putting together another post, but this time on the Institution of the Learned. Hoping, of course, that another "beats me to the punch". But my own post is unlikely to appear until at least tomorrow anyway

With my warmest greetings

Romane

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This was my reply:

Frankly, I've heard this kind of pseudo-theocratic idealism from Baha'is in real life whom I've discussed this with to be comfortable with it at all. At the crux of the issue is that separation of church and state is a MUST in a government, especially one that purports to rule the entire world.

If a government made of incumbents who are never challenged and never allowed to be challenged believes that they are guided by God, if their citizenry is expected to abide by "religious principles" and never disagree in public, never have a public protest of anything, never truly participate in radically changing anything because God said so, what happens when a few people DO disagree, when they DON'T abide by religious principles, when they DO speak their mind against the Administrative Order? With such a big world, it would only be a question of when, not if.

What would happen under the Baha'i ruled world that people would supposedly "turn to" (and how would that work exactly)? If you ignore the viewpoint of minorities for the sake of the rest of the world, or hoping they go away, then you're ignoring potential problems. If they go to jail for petitioning loudly for a redress of grievances, then it's a dictatorship. Would things really get that bad that people would trade basic constitutional freedoms (speech, press, running for office, etc.) that have withstood the test of time for a worldwide government that makes them all agree, or "pre-reviews" all their books to make sure they don't cause conflict? What then of the "diversity" that is claimed to be protected? The actual possibilities are dystopic at best and nightmarishly dictatorial at best, and is probably why the Baha'i Faith's Administrative Order is better off NOT trying to run the entire world, because the system seems to work better on a smaller scale.

Look at the United States if you will for a moment. Sure, we've been very divided as a nation before. Look at things like the Whiskey Rebellion, the Occupy movement, the Tea Party, the Civil Rights protests and conflicts...and yet we've only had one Civil War whereas other nations that have had one party or dictatorial systems have had multiple. Why is this? Well, paradoxically, I think that inviting diversity and allowing everybody to have their political say, to rabble rouse, to form unions, to install and oust Presidents and Congresses with bitter campaigns, has allowed all of us to come together, to invent, to solve massive problems such as slavery, child labor, and Nazism.

Sure, we're not holding hands all the time and singing Kumbaya, and there's still a lot of work to do and a lot of tough problems to solve, but if you told me that tomorrow world peace could be established, but that everybody would have to give up American-style democracy and trade it for theocracy of this type in order to do so, I'd say no thanks. Because the thing is, world peace as in the absence of conflict will never happen in my opinion. But we can get pretty darn close, and this is how.